An Unlikely Friday Night Pizza Cafe Has A Big Heart : The SaltOne night a week, Erin and Robert Lockridge serve homemade pizza out of an empty corner cafe in Cincinnati, and diners pay what they can. The couple sees their work as God's mission in the community.

We turn now to a story about taking risks. NPR's Noah Adams came across this couple in Cincinnati, Ohio, who set out to open a neighborhood pizzeria. But they were going to break some rules while doing it. No advertising, keep the restaurant open only one day a week. No prices on the menu. And the pizza toppings can only come from the garden. That means no pepperoni. They called it an experiment of faith. Here's Noah.

NOAH ADAMS, BYLINE: There is indeed a pizza place with that very description. It's in the city of Norwood, part of greater Cincinnati. Norwood is mostly two-story, wooden houses with porches. Not so prosperous anymore. The Chevrolet plant shutdown in 1989. Two years ago, Roberts and Erin Lockridge, who had settled in this neighborhood after college, decided to start making pizzas. When you talk with them about where the idea came from, you'll get the sort of answer that begins with so...

ERIN LOCKRIDGE: So Robert and I were on our honeymoon, and we went up to Nova Scotia and then traveled down the Coast of Maine in November. So...

ROBERT LOCKRIDGE: We drove.

ADAMS: These two shared an interest in urban farming. Robert was working as a parish farmer sponsored by the church. On that honeymoon trip up in Maine driving along, they talked about what might happen next.

E. LOCKRIDGE: We stopped at - was it Bar Harbor where we were at?

R. LOCKRIDGE: Eastport.

E. LOCKRIDGE: Eastport. And we, you know - we camped that night and the next morning went to a very local diner.

ADAMS: So you can picture here the newly married Ohio couple walking into this diner in in Eastport, Maine finding inspiration.

E. LOCKRIDGE: We watched all the locals come in and get their breakfast. And we watched the way that the waitress behind the counter tended to all these people. And it was really beautiful to watch her because she was very aware of everybody there. And she was almost like a pastor to them.

ADAMS: The idea of a diner, well, that's just too big. But they said maybe we could do something just one night a week. And there is an empty, dusty cafe right down the street from our house. And what about pizza?

R. LOCKRIDGE: Everybody loves pizza. And we can be creative with a pizza. There are fruit trees - a lot of people don't want that fruit. So we can make fruit pies. The imagination started to come together at that point.

ADAMS: Fruit pies and carrot cake, a spicy cabbage salad, pizza by the slice, iced tea, you could bring your own beer and wine. They were about to take up the question - can we make great pizza, make enough money and keep it local?

R. LOCKRIDGE: We wanted to grow the food ourselves because we find that to be an act of prayer, an act of making sense of a world that sometimes doesn't make sense. It involves our bodies, and it grounds us in a good way.

ADAMS: Robert and Erin are both 34. After graduate work in Christian studies, their vocation became growing food to help people. They were already tending five, big neighborhood gardens. And they especially wanted to cook for the older Norwood families.

E. LOCKRIDGE: We're here every day. And we're walking up and down the street, 20 times a day sometimes, sometimes with crates of tomatoes and sometimes with wheelbarrows and sometimes with plates of food. And people see us, and they see that we work hard. And they are hard-working people as well. And they've started to come through the door of the cafe and eat the pizza even if they would prefer to have pizza with meat.

ADAMS: On Friday, that cafe on the corner becomes Moriah Pie. It's now been open for 100 Friday nights. They start serving at 4:30. Robert's been prepping the pizza toppings.

R. LOCKRIDGE: This is for the fajita pizza, which we marinate peppers and squash and zucchini and onions in a cumin-cider vinaigrette. And then we put it on homemade salsa sauce.

ADAMS: Whipped cream for the mulberry pie, that's Erin's job. And she'll say hello to everybody who comes in. She takes the pizza orders from the three servers and later collects the money. No prices are listed at Moriah. You'll get a cloth envelope, you can put in what you like, put in change, put in nothing.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRAYER)

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.

ADAMS: In the kitchen before opening, Robert gathers the staff for a prayer. Out in the dining room, there's a Bible and a prayer book on the windowsill. There are just a few signs that the cafe has a purpose beyond pizza.

ERICA BEARTIE: The food was incredible. Loved it.

ROBERT RYAN: Haven't had anything like that.

ADAMS: Erica Beartie and Robert Ryan, first time at Moriah Pie. They live a couple of blocks away, but until this night, hadn't really noticed.

RYAN: The love that they put into it, you can taste that.

BEARTIE: Yeah, you can taste that. And it's so fresh. And you could taste how fresh it is.

RYAN: Grown right down the street. It's amazing.

NATHAN MYERS: We moved here about five years ago from Virginia.

ADAMS: Nathan Myers is here most Fridays with his wife and their young daughter.

MYERS: We're just enfolded into the community. We were interested in urban poverty and racial reconciliation. And so this community has really provided that opportunity for us to find those relationships.

ADAMS: At Moriah Pie, you'll see families, seniors, couples, kids sitting together without any of their parents. Most everyone is from right in the neighborhood. Erin Lockridge loves the interaction. It's what they'd hoped for. She does worry that the pizza cafe might be seen as a trendy, cool place to be. And she believes other people have other stories and all should be welcome. They usually come later as the evening darkens.

E. LOCKRIDGE: We have had people come in who are drunk. One time a man came in who was clearly drunk. And he was carrying a chainsaw, trying to sell it to us. And I think it maybe made some people a little bit uncomfortable. But as long as he was not causing a scene or being inappropriate, I'm not going to ask him to leave.

ADAMS: The cafe closes that 9:30. Erin and Robert have most of the cleanup work still ahead. Sometimes, Erin says, you can get tired of the cafe and you can start feeling insignificant.

E. LOCKRIDGE: We have worked our butts off all week and all year to grow this food. We get up early. Robert is out sometimes at 4:30, 5:00 o'clock in the morning to water the crops so they don't die in the heat of the summer. And nobody's thinking of that when they're eating the pizza or when they're taking a stack of pizzas home for their boyfriend who won't come because he's high.

ADAMS: And a day or so after my visit, Erin sent along an email about how she was feeling later that night. She writes, it is after midnight when we leave. We touch each other's backs as we walk home buoyed by the music of crickets and the thought of splitting a cold beer. We are quiet. We are thankful. Erin and Robert Lockridge can make a living doing this. They rent the cafe, pay their help, they bought a house, share a car with a neighbor, take vacations. The unlikely pizza cafe business plan that we mentioned earlier actually works. Noah Adams, NPR News.

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